Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

Hurrah for the eternal friendship of the Czechoslovak nation!

Hurrah for Slovakia!

Death to the Junjan occupiers!

Hip, hip, hurrah!!

Urban finishes reading the flyer and gives it to Freddy.

Freddy shakes his head. “I know that flyer very well,” he says.

“When did the Czechs get submarines?” wonders Urban. “The country’s landlocked! Our newspapers say nothing at all about this.”

“It’s no big deal to buy a few submarines, is it?” asks Freddy. “Today anyone will sell you an old World War Two submarine. If the Czechs could have a merchant navy, why can’t they have submarines now? Who cares? The main thing is that they bring weapons and ammunition here. If you like, I’ll show you one of those submarines one day. From inside. You like those Czechs and I’ll introduce you to one of the captains. They’re interesting, outgoing people. They like having visitors and they’ll have a drink with you.”

“You’ve seen such a submarine already?” Urban asks.

“Seen?” Freddy brags. “I spent a week on board one. It was called the Kamýk . And ever since I became commander of New Bystrica, I’ve made friends of all the Czech captains that come here. How many times I’ve been there when the cargo is unloaded! I know them all. We used to have such parties together…”

“In New Bystrica?” Urban is at a loss.

“Yes, New Bystrica,” says Telgarth, “the new Slovak name for Űŕģüllpoļ!”

“You know,” says Urban, “there are places I’d like to see. I’ve been to the US. I shan’t go to Mars. But I’ve always wanted to be in a submarine.”

“When we’ve finished everything we have to do here,” promises Freddy, “we’ll go back to the south coast and attack New Bystrica. After we conquer it, Czech submarines will be docking there again. They’ll like you, since you are a Czechophile. They like us too, since they’re sure we’re fighting for their cause.”

“Well, aren’t you, Freddy?” Urban asks.

“We’re not fighting for any Czechoslovakia,” says Freddy. “We’re fighting for freedom, that’s what we’re fighting for. But our aim isn’t a ‘state union’ with the Czechs, but a free Slovak state. A Slovak empire. And, by the way, Urban, I’ve told you five times now that they don’t know me here as Freddy, Freddy Piggybank.”

There’s a hint of reproach in Freddy’s voice.

“Please don’t use that name. Here I’m Telgarth, the feared guerrilla leader. Yes, Telgarth! Telgarth the First!” he adds quietly, and blushes.

Telgarth doesn’t wait for Urban to reply. He scans the crates. He grabs a shoulder-firing anti-aircraft missile and puts it on his shoulder. He tests it by aiming at the yurt’s ceiling.

“With this we’ll defeat the government mercenaries in no time,” he announces. “They’ve bought a few decommissioned Mig-24 combat helicopters from the Russians. Well, let them try hassling us with them. We’ll shoot them down like clay pigeons! And you, uncle Kresan, try the chocolate now. This one, look: Kofila ! It won the gold medal at the 1958 Brussels Expo. Oh, Brussels style! Urban used go on and on about it!”

Telgarth pats Urban’s back in a friendly way.

“It’s like coffee, uncle Kresan!” he tells the old man. “It won’t hurt you, for God’s sake!”

* * *

In the middle of the night Geľo is woken by a woman’s sobs coming from Zuzana’s corner.

“Can you hear?” he whispers to Elena who, tired after several hours of wild lovemaking, has fallen asleep in his still lusting hands.

Elena mumbles something and turns over.

Geľo leaves his den of furs; naked, he goes to the curtain separating him from Zuzana’s corner. He listens for a while with bated breath. Cold and excitement paralyses his limbs. He finally resolves to lift the curtain.

“It’s me,” he says and slips like lightning under Zuzana’s fur cover. “Don’t be afraid.”

The widow turns her tearful face to him.

“Why are you crying?” Geľo asks.

“I don’t know,” says Zuzana. “From happiness and sorrow. You’re so good to want to take care of me.”

“Adam would have done the same if anything had happened to me…” says Geľo with a lump in his throat.

He touches Zuzana’s powerful, lithe, sleep-warmed body.

“How beautiful you are!” he whispers, his throat tightened, gazing on the gorgeous tattoos on her belly, underbelly and thighs.

Zuzana closes her eyes and as if by chance touches Geľo’s manhood, as hard as a stick. She withdraws her hand as if scalded.

“No, no,” Zuzana whispers. “It’s a sin!”

“Why sin?” Geľo argues, grabbing her tattooed breast. “We belong to each other. The priest will marry us tomorrow. That’s in a few hours!”

He firmly embraces Zuzana’s body and pushes between her legs.

Zuzana does not fight him off, but moves her face aside, as if afraid that Geľo’s increasingly insistent kisses might defile her. She spreads her legs and completely opens up to him.

Geľo enters her and moves around powerfully.

Finally comes relief. Geľo throws off the covers. He withdraws his wildly pulsating member from Zuzana and with a firm hand aims it away from her bed. Hot streams of his semen quickly leave his insides, but only whitish frozen chips fall on the ground.

“Cold!” Zuzana says through her chattering teeth and covers herself with fur. She’s asleep in a moment. There is no trace of tears.

* * *

The coming days will see a big memorable social event: the wedding of Geľo Todor-Lačný-Dolniak to his brother’s widow Zuzana.

Kresan orders a few of the fattest reindeer to be butchered. The women search all day for the tastiest herbs and spices to make fine dishes. Great amounts of sugar and flour are set aside to ferment to distil spirits and make a drink which inspires the human soul to flight.

After a Christian rite, celebrated by the priest with his two sons as altar boys, the feasting begins. The tables groan under the weight of roasted delicacies and bottles of alcohol. Geľo sits at the head of the table; on his right is his first wife Elena, and on his left Zuzana, the bride. She is dazzlingly beautifully dressed. To honour the guests from afar, she has put on the perfume Geľo brought from Prague. She’s used half the phial and now all the guests near her have tears in their eyes. But that doesn’t dim anyone’s cheerful mood, and the closer they are to the bride, the more they laugh through their tears.

There is no end to the toasts. Music begins: the accordionist Trefuľa, two musicians terribly screeching on instruments resembling primitive violins, and someone playing a wooden harp that, under his nimble fingers, produces dark base tones on gut strings drawn over a reindeer skull soundbox. Some of the wedding guests begin to dance. Others have already lost consciousness and are in various immobile states.

Kresan’s very old father has been getting ready all day long to recite the folk epic which foretells even the armed conflict in Junja, as well as the coming of a hero from a distant country overseas. He dresses for the occasion in ceremonial costume. He appears before the gathering with fragile, but lively steps. He bows smoothly like a schoolboy celebrating the Soviet revolution.

“HIPP BOWDURF!” he mumbles the title of the epic poem.

“What was that?” Urban asks Telgarth in a whisper.

“It’s a traditional poem,” says Telgarth. “No one understands it, because it’s handed down orally. It always misses one generation. Children learn it by heart from their grandfathers before they can understand its meaning. So, over the years the meaning has been totally lost.”